For time immemorial, signs of metal, wood, and plastic have been employed to depict advertiser's products and services. Consequently, advertising displays, even those simulating the advertised product or service in two and even three dimensions, are known to the art. The need for effective advertising has resulted in signs being situated at nearly every conceivable location both indoors and out.
Nonetheless, one available advertising location appears not to have been put to its full use. One will realize that poles may be found in nearly any environment. There are support poles in buildings, utility poles lining streets, and poles on ski mountains for supporting ski lifts. One important point that the shear multiplicity of poles raises relative to the instant invention is that a tremendous amount of unique advertising space as of yet has been left underused. Thus far, advertising on poles has been limited substantially to the posting of sheets of paper and the like with tape or tacks.
Certainly, one could set forth a wide variety of other types of locations where standard poles comprise unattractive, dangerous, and potentially damaging utilitarian structures of arguably wasted advertising space. It is worth further noting that each different type of location where poles are located is unique in the degree of danger and potential harm that the respective pole could cause and the type of collision that could occur with the pole. For example, a pole inside a department store may pose little danger to the observant passerby, and any collision with the pole, whether by a shopping cart or a person's body, would comprise an impact of relatively low speed and energy. On the other hand, a collision of an automobile with a utility pole or of a skier with a ski lift pole would be likely to occur at a high rate of speed with a violent impact.
In light of the foregoing, it becomes clear that it would be useful if one were to craft an advertising device capable of effectively converting a pole into a simulative product display thereby making effective use of otherwise underused advertising space, improving the appearance of the pole, and, potentially, serving as a protective barrier around the pole. It is also clear that such a device that could adapt to the nature of its use would comprise a marked advance in the art.